Yes

So...with Friday being a holiday and all, we decided to head down to Greensboro for the weekend so we could get out of the house for a bit...do laundry/etc. I had the idea of riding down to Greensboro, and, have Amy pick me up on the way down. I mapped it out for the Garmin using a cue sheet from a local cycling club's ride list. It looked relatively nice and had some nice detours away from the major roads between here and there.  I gotta say, that Garmin rocks my world. Turn by turn with maps? Hellllllll yea. You can see the link to the ride at the top of the page in the rides list. I'll be uploading any ride outside I do there, and, manually filling in the rest of the details where I can (i.e. power/cals/etc.)

It clocked in at 57 miles. For some strange reason, Amy & I both agreed that I could do this ride in 2-2.5 hours.

WTF?

Needless to say, our math passes were swiftly revoked after that one. The ride itself was very nice. It had a lot of nice hills and very little descending. The hills here are a lot shorter than Colorado, but, they are no less steep. In fact, I find them to be steeper in some parts. The cars that passed me (the 4 the entire ride) were very courteous, and, every farm I rode by the people outside waved at me first. Really a cool experience. The only thing that kinda sucked was the fact that just about every 10 miles some dog would come running out into the middle of the street and chase me. The first one looked like it was seriously going to bite me. I had to not only sprint away as fast as I could, but, pull out the big guns (a la Mikey P) and spray him in the face with my water bottle. He quickly stopped, and, unfortunately, I lost half a bottle on his fur! The next two dogs simply seemed to run along side me and enjoy themselves with no real threat of trying to bite me. I arrived at the halfway point, a small town called Snow Camp, where I met up with Amy. I got changed in the car with Wyatt and enjoyed a delicious Ginger Ale on the way to lunch. I had a VERY good ride and rode as hard as I could for the entire time. Ended up with 1415KJ 1h 58 min & a 220 normalized average. VERY psyched on that.

Saturday's plan was to do an hour loop from Amy's house but we were socked in with rainy weather, so, we just hung out instead. I was pretty tired anyway, so, it was a welcomed rest day. Today, Sunday, we had more rain, so, I opted to just ride the trainer tonight instead. I set it up with our large TV as my monitor (mine is dying), and, I gotta say, I can never ride it again unless the TV is there. The picture is HUGE and so clear and crisp. I had no idea what a piece of shit my monitor was! I rode the Amstel Gold course which is up and down, with the ups being UP...WAYYY UP...at like 11+% per "berg" (flemmish for climb or hill I believe). Ended up with 55 minutes 619KJ and a 187W average. Again, very psyched.

This week is some more trainer time, and, I've got the commuter all ready to go. I WILL do it this week. Hopefully 2 days...weather looks most promising Tuesday & Friday. We'll see. Next weekend will be my first local group ride, so, I'll be sure to report back on that (weather pending).